I recently heard Carolyn Young (Executive Director of Programs and Communications for TriMet) mention something about TriMet and Google getting together on a special project. I followed up with her and this is what she told me:

“TriMet is talking to Google about being a pilot for a trip planning tool using Google maps. We want to get a lot of data overlays on the same map, including sidewalks, bike routes, curb-cuts for mobility devices etc. The goal would be to be able to easily map a trip from your house to anywhere you want to go in the TriMet region using your bike and transit – along with schedules and approximate time to make the trip.”

According to Carolyn, it will be “a couple of months” before they have anything to show us, but this definitely sounds interesting.

[...] News4Neighbors reports that the Google and TriMet collaboration that I reported on back in October has officially launched. “Google Transit” is in beta and you can read more about it straight from the horses mouth on the Google Blog. Why launch this tool with Portland’s very own TriMet? Here’s what Google says: “We chose to launch with the Portland metro area for a couple of reasons. Tri-Met, Portland’s transit authority, is a technological leader in public transportation. The team at Tri-Met is a group of tremendously passionate people dedicated to serving their community. And Tri-Met has a wealth of data readily available that they were eager to share with us for this project. This combination of great people and great data made Tri-Met the ideal partner.” [...]